


Changes

by KTHRN



Series: Tales of Junkertown [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Breeder biotics, Gen, Junkertown is messed up, Junkrat fights in the Scrapyard, Junkrat growing up, Papa Roadie, Some Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 23:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17375486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTHRN/pseuds/KTHRN
Summary: The first time Mako saw the child, it had to have been around the age of five.





	Changes

The first time Mako saw the child, it had to have been around the age of five. Scrawny, blonde and freckled, he wasn’t even sure of its gender, but it seemed to be moving around the back of Bruce’s yard with a sure purpose.

Oblivious to the small thief filling its pockets at the back shelves, Bruce inspected the scrap Mako had brought in with great interest. Rubbing his beard and feigning thoughtfulness, the other man fixed him with a grim expression. “That’ll be a fiver for the lot.” 

Roadhog stared back unimpressed. The mechanic squirmed a bit and then bit out a: “Fine. Seven and that’s me bein’ generous. Take it or leave it ya damn kiwi.”

Greedy. Taking the money, Mako decided against informing him of the child, who by now had noticed that the deal was being concluded at the front of the shop and that it needed to move before it was caught. With some effort, it hoisted the bag of pilfered parts into its arms and snuck out of the back entrance, silent as a rodent.

The second time was when Mako was locking his back door at the farm. Something made him peer out onto the cornfields. Nothing seemed amiss, a small rustle near the back, which could have merely been the wind. Still, he stepped out, curious.

He found the child a few feet beyond, in the process of digging out some potatoes near the edge of the field. Clever. He wouldn’t have even noticed them missing, he thought to himself. So absorbed by this eager task, the child did not hear him approach. Up close, it became clear it was a boy. And the boy was positively emaciated. 

“Not nice to steal.”, Mako grunted, reaching out and grabbing him by the scruff of his neck before he could scurry off. Large, strangely coloured eyes looked up from where he held the child in the air. Then its lips wobbled. “No-“, he began a warning but it was too late.

The kid screamed like bloody murder, kicking out his feet and small hands like a rabid badger. Mako took a few steps towards the pig pen, feeling a headache build. Promptly, he raised his arm and tossed the child into one of the watering troughs. The crying stopped. 

Sputtering and in shock, he looked up at Mako with a fierce glare. Then, he opened his mouth.

“Why’d yoo do dat?”, came a rather petulant whine. Then: “Twat.”

Roadhog had to stifle a laugh at that. “Also not nice.”, he replied, hoisting the child back up out of the water. With that, he dragged him back up to the farm, draped an oversized towel over his little head and worked to warm up his leftovers on the small stove.

Still shivering, but also bored by the silence of his new companion, the child spoke up again. “My name’s Jamison Fawkes. What’s yours?”

Mako didn’t reply, turning around instead to place a bowl of hot stew before him. Jamison looked at him for a long moment, then attacked his food like he was truly starving. He supposed he was. In under a minute the bowl was empty and spotless. “Reckon I could get anotha?”, the child asked boldly.

“Manners.” Mako grunted back, already filling up another serving.

“Please, sir? I wanna get as big as you someday. That’s why I wos taking some of yer taters cus I figured I got ta eat a lot for that.” The boy said with about as much charm as he could muster, blinking up at him with eyes too big for his face. Orange, they seemed, perhaps a very light shade of brown.

“Then eat up, little rat.”, placing the bowl in front of him, Mako sighed.

 

Over the years to come, Jamison Fawkes did get bigger, although not in width. Sneaking off God knows where during the day, in the evenings he would devour anything Mako put in front of him. By the time he was a teenager he towered over his peers, gangly and possessed by a restless energy that made most people wary of him.

It was not unusual to hear shouting coming from Bruce’s Wreckyard in the morning, because if there was one thing that Junkrat (as they began to call him from a young age) had a fondness for stealing, beside food, it was scrap. More specifically, he liked to tinker.

Never missing a single fight, he would worm his way into every crowd at the Scrapyard he could. Then, when he’d arrive back at the farm for his meal, he’d chatter for hours about his favorite fighters until he collapsed on the worn sofa.

Little changed that way, like hardly anything ever changed in Junkertown. A new queen was chosen from among the young girls, a fierce little thing that commanded respect from the start. Junkertown was built on a foundation of matriarchy after all, something Roadhog had no difficulty with.

The only thing that bothered him were the damn breeders. Spoiled, pampered men that got to live in the women’s quarters, doing nothing but lying around while the rest of them worked their asses off. A damn waste of space if you asked him, though that thought was tinged with a bit of jealousy as well.

Life was like that as a junker. You were either born a woman, a breeder or a worker. And in that last category, life was tough. You fought and did what you could to pay your taxes or else you were kicked out and forced to starve.

And if there was ever a fighter, it was Junkrat. Anyone that tried to take anything of his, would wind up with a black eye and a dusty lung. As he grew older, he grew meaner, never taking no for an answer and always getting the best bargain in every deal. Bruce had offered the kid a job as soon as he hit fifteen, but Jamison preferred to head into the outbacks, laying his self-made traps and dragging back whatever he caught for a good profit. 

Meat was a rare commodity in Junkertown, few people were brave enough to head into the area of radiation outside. No longer needing to show up for scraps at his farm, Mako now only saw Jamison during his weekly job at Wolf Wood’s, chugging more liquor than anyone of his weight should.

Girls noticed Junkrat, buzzing with that strange kind of nervous excitement whenever he showed up. Not that they could be blamed. Jamison had grown to a staggering six foot five, broad shouldered and amber eyed. Unlike the breeders up in their secluded area, his voice was deep and low and he knew the sweet talk that was guaranteed to turn their little heads. 

Junkrat, in turn, loved the attention. Every week saw him getting kicked out of the women’s quarters, smelling of perfumes and covered in some sheila’s lipstick, and every week had him trying to sneak back in.

“Forget it kid”, Wolfgang shook his head as he fixed the young man another drink. “It aint your place up there. You’re stuck here working with the rest of us for all o’ yer life.” 

“And aint it the best life”, Jamison grinned to the bartender, slapping a few coins on the bar. “Oi Roadie, want a drink mate?”

Mako just grunted near the back entrance, though a proud smile tugged at his mouth all the same.

 

As soon as he turned eighteen, Junkrat signed up for the Scrapyard. It was to be expected for a kid who had spent his whole life fighting, still, it made Mako nervous. Pushing his way to the front of the crowd, he watched silently as the boy he had helped raise from nothing stepped into the ring.

His first opponent was Big Bull, a veteran who lived up to his name in both reputation and size. Many boys had started off as the evening’s appetizer, thrown into the ring as a prelude to the bigger fights, and many had ended their career right there. Bull was dubbed the crusher of dreams in that sense, made to ward off the kids whose ambitions had gotten ahead of them.

To become the champion in the Scrapyard was to win your place in the women’s quarters, in the presence of the Queen and all her breeders, to eat and lavish in luxury. It was for this reason most of the workers fought and tried to rise in rank. The champion, as it were, was an individual that had never even been seen by the men, defeating all competitors for decades from a round mech armed with lethal cannons.

Mako knew that Jamison’s reasons were different. He had grown up watching the fights, obsessed with dreams of facing his heroes and getting his face on those posters.

Big Bull bared his teeth in an ugly grin as he lifted up a heap of scrap, almost as large as Jamison himself, with one hand. Show off. Mako looked to his friend to see him grinning back, unimpressed. Then the horn blew and the crowd fell silent with a hush.

On the platform above, the Queen approached, spreading her arms. “Welcome, my loyal subjects”, she crooned into the microphone. “To another night of grandeur. I now declare the Scrapyard... opened.”

With that, Bull charged. The crowd exploded, expecting a short fight. Fast as lighting and with a look of ease on his face, Junkrat dodged the man’s full body slam, angling his elbow into the air and bringing it back with a sickening crunch.

Bull stumbled forward, gripping the back of his head with a shout. Enraged, he reached around to grab the young man, who once again evaded him with ease. Grabbing around for a weapon, the veteran found a chain and swung it through the air, cursing and still disoriented. Jamison kept his distance, circling around the other man while looking for a weak spot.

After a moment, he saw his chance. Bolting forward as the thick metal chain was swinging backwards, Junkrat threw himself legs first into Bull’s exposed stomach, making the man topple back with a wheeze. Then, wrestling the chain from his beefy hand, he wrapped it around his neck and pulled.

The crowd was going wild. Here was a kid, first time in the arena, choking the life out of their seasoned veteran, destroyer of dreams, within just a minute. From the platform, the Queen looked on with interest as Bull tried to claw at the young man on top of him. Hands beginning to fall limply at his side and his face turning blue, it was clear to all spectators that the man had truly lost to a novice.

The horn sounded, the Queen had signaled for the match to be over. Releasing the chain, Jamison straightened up, unscratched and grinning. From the ground, Big Bull was gasping for breath and struggling to get up.

That night, Jamison spent all of his first winnings on rounds, making sure to send a big pint over to the Bull’s table with a cheeky smirk. Mako grumbled, sensing a fight about to happen, but now he knew that undoubtedly, the kid could hold his own just fine.

The next day Roadhog passed by Swagman’s Needlepoint on his way to the pub, only to see a familiar form sitting in the tattoo parlor’s front seat. Giving him a wave with his left hand, Jamison had his right lying still on the table as the artist worked on his shoulder. Nodding back in greeting, Mako continued on his way.

 

Junkrat’s career took off from there, taking less than a year to move him to the more seasoned rank. His propensity for traps and explosives made itself known in the ring, his speed and strength making him a formidable foe. But mostly the young man relied on his sharp mind, coming up with strategies on the spot that his opponents were simply unable to. 

Mako watched him playing the arena like it was game, with a growing sense of pride, taking up a permanent spot at the front of the crowds. He was not the only one that did. Up from her spot on the ramps, the Queen observed the young challenger with a keen interest.

It was a few days before Jamison’s twenty-first birthday when he entered the arena for the last time. The horn rang through the Scrapyard, the crowd quieted down, yet there was no one else in the ring. Just Junkrat, looking over his shoulder and seeing Mako and Bruce in their same old spot. Grinning, he mouthed something that Roadhog couldn’t make out, before the Queen appeared on her podium and commanded the attention.

“Today”, she began, “you all will witness what happens when ambition overtakes the mind of a worker. No good things come from disorder, you know this. Junkrat, you have challenged this arena and I commend you for your bravery. But now it seems your journey comes to an end.”

Lifting one hand into the air, the Queen gave Jamison a smile that lacked any warmth, a smile that seemed laced with poison. “I call upon my champion.”

A thundering crash filled the air, filled by an echoing voice. “Wrecking Ball, online.” 

Mako felt dread seize him and without thinking he was moving forward. Within an instant, he was held back by several of the arena’s guards. “Jamison!”, he bellowed at the boy. Those strange eyes met him from across the guards’ shoulders. “Forfeit.”

Junkrat recoiled at the command, then he glared, every bit the stubborn brat he had picked from his field all those years ago. And he did not forfeit.

The match was over within minutes, the Queen lifting her hand in a silent order, that look of dark glee still on her pretty face. Mako wanted to throw his fist into that face, he wanted to rip through the guards that stood between him and the ring. Bruce had a hand on his shoulder, speaking with barely controlled rage. “Mako.”

Roadhog watched them drag his boy away on a makeshift stretcher, a crew member laughing loudly as he collected Jamison’s severed limbs from the bloodied ground. “Mako,” Bruce called again, “I have a plan.”

 

It took over a month of negotiating with the guard at the barracks to let them in. One visit, they conceded, just to say goodbye. What that meant, he did not know, nor did he want to.

Jamison barely registered them enter the room, looking at the door with a far-away look in his eyes. He seemed small, no, he was smaller. They seemed to have hardly fed him in the ward, strange tubes connected to his one arm, the other one merely a stump now. 

When he realized who it was, Junkrat gave them a dopey smile. “Bruce. Roadie.”, he slurred. For a moment, neither one of them replied, shocked. Jamison’s voice had risen several registers, in sheer contrast with his normal speech. “Guess whot. Dey’re sendin’ me to sheilas’ corner. And not jus’ any ol’ place, I’m gunna go to the Queen’s place. ‘Ow bout dat huh?”

A breeder nurse smiled patiently at the heavily drugged man, then turned to them. “Our Queen is full of grace. She’s requested his retirement be at her side, where he will make a fine addition to her collection. Now isn’t that something to be aspired to, Jamison?”

Junkrat frowned for a moment, seeming conflicted. Then he looked up at Mako and, for a moment, he looked so much like the young boy asking him for scraps that Mako had to look away. His gaze landed on the tubes that were attached to his left arm.

Biotics. They were turning him into a breeder. The fiercest one of them all, made to serve as an example. “Five minutes.” The nurse announced as he left the room.

“You know”, Bruce began in a kind voice, “When you go to the Queen, you should bring her a gift. One that you ‘ave to keep hidden in order for it to be a good surprise. Do you understand what I’m gettin’ at son?”

“You mean like a secret?”, Jamison asked slowly. “Yes, just like that. When you go to her summer shack, you’re going to give her a big present.”, Bruce replied.

“But I don’t have anything...”, the man looked utterly lost again and Mako was unable to make a sound, grief overtaking him. “I have something. They’re fireworks, she’ll love ‘em. Don’t you worry yourself son. Just remember, no one can know except the three of us, ‘right?”

They left the ward in silence.

 

A few weeks later, an explosion obliterated the Queen’s entire summer residence. In the ensuing chaos, workers raided most of the women’s quarters. Mako watched the smoke rise above the walls of Junkertown until the sky turned dark. Then, he headed inside, only turning once when he reached his door.

A rustling in the fields. Sighing heavily, Roadhog walked around to inspect the pigs. All seemed quiet. Then he saw a shape staggering near his potato patch and a voice, high pitched but utterly familiar, was shouting at him.

“Oi! You’ll never guess where I’ve been. Come pick me up you twat, I can’t bloody walk.”

If Mako had crushed Jamison a bit too tightly to himself while dragging the young man into the farm, he couldn’t be bothered to explain it. And if, through all his complaining, Jamison was grinning uncontrollably, what could he say? Little ever changed in Junkertown, after all.


End file.
